What’s in a place name?
The residents of Crows Nest in Queensland are currently divided over how their town got its name.
Although it would appear to have come from the Aboriginal name for the site - “Tookoogandannah”
which translates as “home of crows” - a more fanciful story tells of a local Aborigine, Jimmy Crow,
who lived in a hollow tree in the town centre from where he guided the bullockies and cedar getters and
acted as a mail drop. Supposedly, the bullockies named him Jimmy Crow because he was black, and
hence Jimmy Crow’s Nest – the hollow tree, and thence Crow’s Nest.
Flavia Hodges, of the Australian National Placenames Survey
(ANPS) based at Macquarie University, says there can often be
conflicting theories on how places got their name. Although
many Australian placenames are derived from Aboriginal
names or are named after European explorers or politicians,
some have more creative origins.
“Norseman in Western Australia is named after a horse that
found gold there, apparently, but there are also a couple named
after famous dogs and bullocks,” Hodges says.
Although it was identified as a much-needed resource by the
Australian Academy of the Humanities back in the 1960s, a
comprehensive collection of Australian placenames has been
slow in realisation. After several aborted attempts to create a
placenames dictionary, the project was resurrected in 1996
when current Head of Macquarie’s Division of Humanities,
David Blair, and amateur placenames historian Bill Noble gave
a presentation to an Australian Historical Association meeting
in Melbourne.
There’s no doubt some of the delay in starting the project has been due to the sheer size of the job
ahead. The ANPS aims to prepare a national register of geographical names, incorporating historical
research, geography, linguistics, cultural knowledge, surveying and mapping. Their fledgling database,
which will eventually be accessible over the Internet, will record all known Australian names,
documenting their pronunciation, status, origin, meaning, history, cultural significance and map
reference and location.
A 1990 estimate suggested Australian placenames could number four million - however Hodges says
this figure may be way below the mark.
“This is the crudest of figures pulled out of a hat, based on the landmass of Australia and a ballpark
figure for the density of major toponyms in Europe and their rate of replacement - the overall total is
certainly unlikely to be lower than that,” she says.
And although the project will probably take decades to complete, Hodges says it is of enormous
importance.
“It’s essential to Australian history and culture and it’s something that most comparable countries of
the world have done,” Hodges says. “In the United Kingdom they have one that has just celebrated its
Macquarie University News article, Nov/Dec 2001, Greg Welsh, page 1 of 3
75th anniversary and they reckon they’ll finish it by 2025. In the United States it’s been going on for a
bit longer – although some States have done things very well and some haven’t. Canada’s got a great
system – so Australia really is lagging behind.”
The only positive arising from Australia’s late start is that the Survey team can utilise the most recent
technological advances and thinking.
For starters, the Survey will work closely with the Committee for Geographic Names in Australasia
(CGNA) and other names institutions in each state and territory. The CGNA was formed in 1984 and
has done a great deal of work on the technical side of toponymy, determining the forms of placenames
and linking them precisely with features. It has created an electronic Gazetteer of 210,000 placenames,
which the ANPS will use as their foundation, although the CGNA does not record why or how the
place got its name.
Australia’s history of recent white colonisation creates
unique problems for the researchers.
“In Australia, unlike Europe, one can usually determine
when a place was first named in English, often who named
it, and in a reasonable number of cases why it was so
named,” Hodges says. “On the other hand, the scholarly
investigation of indigenous naming practices is in its
infancy.
“In most cases, the indigenous names were first recorded by people with little knowledge of the
language concerned, and they have often been altered to conform more closely with English phonology
or typical name-shapes. Also, in many cases the languages concerned are poorly documented and are
no longer spoken.”
A priority of the Survey team is therefore to build links with indigenous people through land councils
and language centres in regions where indigenous languages are still used. They will also rely heavily
on the involvement of local historical societies and individual historians with a detailed knowledge of
particular areas.
The Project will start by looking at the names of geographical features (such as hills, creeks, bays,
headlands); habitations (towns, suburbs); other features associated with settlement and land use (like
stock stations, paddocks, waterholes, lines of road); and administrative divisions (states, local
government areas and electorates). Eventually, the Survey will extend to take in the names of undersea
features within Australian territorial waters and the placenames of Australia’s external territories.
Recently, the ANPS undertook two model research projects in Mudgee and around Botany Bay, in
collaboration with the NSW Geographical Names Board. These centres were chosen because they
exemplified contrasting rural and urban locations, and both have active local historical societies. From
these projects, the ANPS team will develop teaching materials on researching and data entry methods
for local historians and other researchers interested in contributing information to the Project.
Over the next few decades, the Survey team will no doubt come across many colourful placenames
with amusing origins. Yet before we criticise former beauracrats for the placenames they lumped us
with, we should remember that the naming of our national capital, Canberra, was based on a public call
Macquarie University News article, Nov/Dec 2001, Greg Welsh, page 2 of 3
for suggestions. Among the 750 names received were Kangaremu, Sydmeladperbrisho, Empire City,
Democratia, Australamooloo, Utopia, Cooee, Swindleville, Gonebroke and Revenuelia. How different
things could have been!
GW
Macquarie University News article, Nov/Dec 2001, Greg Welsh, page 3 of 3